Abstract

Sonic boom research conducted at NASA is oriented toward understanding the potential impact of sonic boomnoise on communities from new low-boom supersonic aircraft designs. This research contributes to knowledge in key areas needed to support development of a new noise-based standard for supersonic aircraft certification. Partnerships with several industry, government, and academic institutions have enabled the execution of a pilot low boom community response test to develop and assess experimental methodologies, including sonic boomdata acquisition, subjective data collection, and data analysis. Areas of additional research are identified and a prioritization of issues is performed to guide design of a potential follow-on pilot test. Lessons learned from these community response tests will facilitate future community testing with actual low-boom aircraft in communities not familiar with sonic booms.